News & Notes Inside the Week in Film

The George W. Bush Documentary Story of the Week

Bush’s Brain exists!!!  I swear!!!

by Chris Neumer

A friend of mine recently mentioned that he had once purchased a DVD at Best Buy that contained no actual DVD.  The DVD was factory sealed, but when he opened it at his house, much to his chagrin, he learned that there was no DVD in the case.  He asked me if this had ever happened to me and it brought a wonderful story to mind.

In 2004, Joseph Mealey and Michael Shoob made a political documentary called Bush’s Brain that was released by Tartan Films.  The film was not a probing examination into the decision making processes of President Bush or his unique history of bungling common phrases and everyday grammar.  Instead, the film was an investigation into the shadowy, behind-the-scenes figure of Karl Rove, Republican election guru and former chief presidential advisor,.  Or, you know, the man that our glorious leader nick-named “Turd Blossom” (who made headlines in November of 2012 for refusing to agree with the Fox News assessment that Obama had won the state of Ohio).

However intriguing the film was though, it didn’t hold a candle to the number of comical situations that arose thanks to the project’s title (you can practically hear late night comedians on the matter: “So the movie Bush’s Brain came out yesterday. Yeah… It’s five minutes long and features nothing but a blank screen…”)

I first heard of the project when I was approached by a publicist who asked me, apropos of nothing, if I knew about Bush’s Brain. Thinking she was setting up a joke of some sort, I didn’t respond. She repeated the question and, not knowing that she was referencing a movie, said that I was. She completely threw me for a loop when she started talking about how it was sharp, edgy, well-respected and lauded by numerous Hollywood types. “Bush’s brain?” I asked slowly. When the confusion lifted some minutes later and I exclaimed, “Oh, it’s a movie!”, the publicist agreed to send me a DVD of the film.

Fittingly, when I opened the DVD packaging, there was no disc inside. I’ve received between 6,000 and 7,000 DVDs during my tenure at the magazine and only one of them hasn’t had an actual disc inside the case. Suffice it to say, Bush’s Brain was missing.

The publicist didn’t have any more actual DVDs to send at the time, so she offered to send me a preview disc, sans case, that I believe she had been using as a coaster. When I received the scratched new disc, I placed it into my DVD player and quickly learned that there was an error trying to find Bush’s Brain. No matter how much I wanted to see Bush’s Brain, I just couldn’t do it, and lord knows that I was trying.

I called the publicist and explained my recent tribulations with the scratched preview disc and, much like Dana Perino, the Tartan publicist swore to me that despite all appearances to the contrary, “Bush’s Brain really does exist.”

Since then, I’ve come to realize that I wasn’t the only one who found a certain joy in the play on words, Bush’s Brain.  Sellers at Amazon.com and eBay also got into the act, including in their description of the DVD things like the following:

• Like the man, not without its flaws

• I never thought it existed until I saw this

• See where it’s been for the last eight years, my DVDs are guaranteed

Mealey and Shoob’s decision to title their film as such was a stroke of genius, intentional or otherwise. I never thought I’d be enamored of Bush’s Brain, nor singing its praises, but time has a funny way of dashing your expectations.

 

Yes!  I Can Hear You Now!

The accuracy with which Hollywood producers and writers depict cell phone use is getting worse with each passing year.  We’re this close to someone hitting the ‘end’ button repeatedly and asking to talk to an operator.

by Chris Neumer

Filmmakers are known to take some extensive liberties in their presentations of reality.  Action heroes never miss a shot, even if they’re firing a pistol at a moving target some 75 yards away in the dark.  Conversely, bad guys always miss, even if they are starring at their targets through the cross-hairs of their sniper rifles some 30 feet in front of them.

These examples aren’t big deals to most people because, let’s be honest, almost no one has experienced anything like that.  And this makes sense.  I use my cell phone multiple times daily, of course I’m going to know the ins-and-outs of it better than I do a situation where I’m shooting at a fleeing terrorist; I only do that once or twice a year.  And it’s when the production teams decide to play fast and loose with elements of reality with which the public is very familiar that they encounter problems.

For some reason, this bit of knowledge never seems to impact the way the filmmakers approach their silver screen reality.  Especially when dealing with cell phones.  Particularly when dealing with cell phones.

I seem to suffer through an inordinately high amount of situations that make me feel resoundingly stupid.  The most frequent of these is when I’m on my cell phone talking to someone, the call drops without my knowledge and I end up talking for five minutes to absolutely no one.  On a good day, I’ll be alerted to the fact that my call dropped when the person I was talking to calls me back and I experience three solid seconds of panic and confusion as I try to figure out how the person I’m on the phone with is calling me.

This happens to me so often, that it’s become comical.  I have long since stopped wondering how I can A) talk for three minutes in a row without noticing that there’s no one on the other end of the line, or B) talk for three minutes in a row, period.  Who am I?  Spalding Gray?

This is a problem that no one ever has on the big-screen.  Why?  Because when an A-list movie star is hung up upon, he hears clicking sounds on his phone.  Immediately upon hearing these clicks, the movie star angrily clicks the ‘end’ button on his phone and tries to regroup.

Of course, this is ridiculous.  Not only do cell phones not click when they’re disconnected, but when a call is dropped by person A, person B does not have to hit end; the call has already ended.  I’m not going to get into the extreme absurdity surrounding the scenario where someone grabs person A’s phone while they’re talking to person B, smashes it on the ground and person B hears a loud, piercing sound on their end forcing person B to quickly yank the hands-free ear piece out of their ear and wince in pain, most likely while simultaneously pinching the bridge of their nose with two fingers.

However, there is a new trend that I am noticing that needs to be commented on.*  Hollywood has upped the crazy; now when person A hangs up on person B on-screen, person B can hear a dial tone.  A dial tone!

* It is more than possible that this has been going on for years and I am only picking up on it now.

Compared to this, the clicking sounds and piercing sounds are positively real.  I mean, cell phones don’t have dial tones.  The ‘Can you hear me now?’ guy couldn’t produce a dial tone on his cell phone to save his family’s lives.

About the only positive I can see in this situation is that, after being hung up upon, no one has (yet) start repeatedly pressing the ‘end’ button and expecting to talk to an operator.  I guess it’s only a matter of time.

 

Publicist Tales

Interacting with publicists occasionally produces some very unusual stories.  These are those stories.

by Chris Neumer

The story I am about to tell is not unique to publicists—really, it could happen to anyone who has an e-mail account, I suppose—but since it happened to me while dealing with a publicist, it falls under this heading.  All the same, I’m not sure I ever foresee this happening to Meg Whitman.

At 7:18PM on December 27th, I received an e-mail from a publicist asking if I’d be interested in interviewing a well known up-and-coming actor on January 2nd.  I replied, stating that I would like to speak to the star in question.  At 7:21PM, I received a second e-mail from the publicist.  An “Out of Office AutoReply”.

I found this amusing, given that literally three minutes had elapsed since the publicist had sent the initial e-mail out.  But that’s not the part that caused me to write this up.  Nope.  The part that put this situation over the top was the rest of the e-mail.  Wrote the publicist: “I will be out of the office on Friday, 12/29 and Monday 12/31.  Our office will be closed on New Year’s Day.  I will be returning on 1/2.  [During this time] I will not have access to email and cell… In case of emergency, you may reach me on my cell.”

Recapping: I was extended an invitation to speak to an actor six days in the future.  Less than three minutes after the original invitation was sent out, the publicist turned on her ‘auto reply’ function and announced that she was going to be MIA until the day before the interview may (or may not) have been taking place.  If there was an emergency, I could contact her on her cell phone… a cell phone that she wouldn’t be accessing.  Suffice it to say, I didn’t get the interview.

Ah, publicists…

 

The Photo of the Week

Flight 93

 

The 5 Things I Learned This Week

Fascinatingly true things to broaden your mind

 

1) The longest word in the English language is 189,819 letters long.

2) That word is the name of a very large protein called Titin.  Don’t ask why there is a nearly 190,000 letter long word for something that already has a name.

3) The longest word in the English dictionary is 45 letters long.  It is pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis.

4) There are several discussions amongst lexicographers (defined by dictionary.com as people “who compile dictionaries”) about whether groupings of letters that define chemicals should even be considered words.

5) According to weather.com, there is something called “moonset” and it takes place a few hours after sunrise.

 

 

This Week’s Stories

New Releases

Cosmopolis

THE PLAYERS: Starring Robert Pattinson, Juliette Binoche, and Sarah Gadon ; written and directed by David Cronenberg;  Released by E1 Entertainment. Rated R.

THE PLOT: A billionaire’s life is flipped upside down as he travels across town to get a haircut.

THE SKINNY:
– There are a lot of things that transpire in this movie that seems to suggest that A) we should feel sorry for the lead for having so much money, and B) that the only way to live is to free yourself of the constraints of society… which definitely includes money.  On one hand, this is noble, albeit ridiculous.  On the other hand, it’s distinctly weird to watch a billionaire lose all his money and be happy about it.  But that’s the type of movie Cosmopolis is.  There are a bunch of weird actions throughout it that don’t make a whole lot of sense, like the daily medical check ups the lead has done (in a car, mind you) or the thing where the lead shoots himself in the hand.  There isn’t a whole lot conventional about this film, to say the least.
– You will not understand this movie.  I’m not sure the characters do.  If you liked Mulholland Drive, you’ll love Cosmopolis.
+ With Robert Pattinson playing the role of a Wall Street asset manager, it allows for smartass viewers to make jokes like, “He’s twice the blood sucker he was in Twilight!”
– Cosmopolis is based off of the novel of the same name written by Don DeLillo.  A lot of people called the book unfilmable.  Those people were right.
+ Cosmopolis is artfully made.  It looks good, it sounds good, the actors do a great job of playing the characters they play, but this is all in the context of a movie that feels strangely hollow.

YES, IT’S TRUE: Robert Pattinson learned to drive in a ten hours on the set of Twilight.

Little Birds

THE PLAYERS: Starring Juno Temple, Kay Panabaker, and Leslie Mann; written and directed by Elgin James. Released by Millennium Films. Rated R.

THE PLOT: Two girls leave their homes to follow a couple of boys back to Los Angeles.

THE SKINNY:
+/- This film is rated R for, and I quote, “pervasive language, some violence including a sexual assault, sexuality/nudity, drug and alcohol use – all involving teens”.
+ Leslie Mann has further cemented her place in Hollywood as the go to actress for ‘good looking crazy’.  Dear God has she.  If she loses about ten more pounds, Mann will be the go to actress for ‘good looking crazy methhead’ too.
– There is a certain heavy heart with which I watch films like these.  I can’t say that I’ve been in the lead’s shoes, what with her being a poor female from a desert town, but I understand her torment.  I also understand that following some transient boys to Los Angeles because you have a crush on one of them at age 15 is a horrible idea.  And I don’t like watching characters self-destruct on-screen for no real reason.  If the lead wanted to rob a bank, I could get behind that—at least there’s something positive she could get from it: money—but following a criminal to LA for, uh, love or something?  I’m not on board.
+ Juno Temple does a fantastic job in the lead that is reminiscent of a smaller scale scenario involving Ellen Page.  Ignore the ‘Juno’ references and just focus on the fact that both early-twentysomething women nailed their roles as teen characters with problems… and it’s not really going to do all that much for their careers going forward.  Yes, it’s a wee bit cynical, but it’s also true.

YES, IT’S TRUE: When Los Angeles was founded in 1781, it’s original population was 44.

Looper

THE PLAYERS: Starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Bruce Willis, and Emily Blunt; written and directed by Rian Johnson. Released by Sony Pictures.  Rated R.

THE PLOT: A hit man realizes his latest target is his future self.

THE SKINNY:
+ Stories that deal with time travel are risky affairs, and writers often leave gaping holes in the scripts that tackle the subject (see The Butterfly Effect and Timecop).  It is clear writer/director Rian Johnson has put some serious thought into this film. The script, although complex, successfully delivers an original story that isn’t ruined by the paradox of time travel.
– Having said that, no time travel plot is perfect.  If you’re the type of person who would watch this film and wonder why Bruce Willis is hunting the child who would eventually grow up to be the man who sends Willis back to the past in the first place, and if he succeeds, would Willis ever have been sent back to the past at all?  And if Willis is never sent back to the past then would the boy survive and grow up and send Willis back to the past where he would kill the boy and then never be sent back to the past again only to have the boy grow up and send him back to the past… this movie is not for you.
+ Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s performance as a young Bruce Willis is spot on.  His impersonation of Willis’ unique mannerisms, combined with some well done prosthetics, seriously confused me when I first saw the trailer.
– That fact that some characters randomly have telekinetic powers feels a bit misplaced. So much so that I felt the entire thing could have been done away with taking anything away from the plot or characters at all.

YES, IT’S TRUE: Stephen Hawking suggest that the absence of tourists from the future is an argument against the existence of time travel.

The Trouble With Bliss

THE PLAYERS:  Starring Michael C. Hall, Peter Fonda, and Lucy Liu; written and directed by Michael Knowles.  Released by Variance Films.  Rated PG-13.

THE PLOT: A man starts dating the daughter of a former high school friend.

THE SKINNY:
– The Trouble with Bliss stars Michael C. Hall.  It is impossible to watch this and not think about the television show Dexter at any given point in time. Couldn’t the production have at least dyed Hall’s hair black?
– Helping nothing with the Dexter tie-ins, the film’s co-star is Brad William Henke… who had a season long recurring role in Dexter Season 1 as Tony Tucci.  Really?  You cast the face of Dexter as the lead in your indie movie… and then start bringing is other cast members of the show for supporting roles too?
+ The name of the girl with whom the lead falls in love is not Bliss.
– It seems like that there would be a lot of interesting ways and emotions to explore when dealing with the topic of a 35-year old man dating the 18-year old daughter of a high school friend of his… but this is not evidenced by the movie at hand.
– One real issue with The Trouble with Bliss (and movies like it) is the level of disbelief that is necessary to even get into the plot.  In this film, the audience is expected to believe that the lead is a 35-year old man without a job, without a talent, without motivation, who is slightly overweight, has poor hygiene, lives with his dad… and that not one, but two attractive women (one of whom is 18) are going out of their way to throw themselves at him, consequences of their actions be damned.  And the entire plot of the movie is predicated around the audience buying into that.  Color me suspicious.

YES, IT’S TRUE: The age of consent in Bolivia is “puberty”.

 

The New Releases were written by Chris Neumer and Kevin Withers